Control access systems have historically been completely interconnected by wired and/or wireless connections. More specifically, readers and other types of message hosts are generally in communication with a centralized control system such as a centralized control panel. The interconnectedness of the system allows policy updates to be quickly and efficiently disseminated throughout the access control system. If a policy update (e.g., sending new access permissions to all readers) is necessary, then the centralized control panel would send a message to the networked message hosts notifying them of the new policy.
While these completely interconnected systems help to facilitate efficient policy updates they are expensive to install and maintain, especially in large facilities where a significant amount of wire and/or wireless communication devices are required to have each message host in communication with the centralized control panel. Thus, non-networked message hosts (i.e., message hosts which are not in communication with a centralized control system via a direct communication path or message hosts that have a communication path that becomes unavailable), which are also referred to as local hosts, are becoming more desirable due to their autonomy and the low cost associated with their installation and maintenance. The downside to installing non-networked message hosts is that it becomes more difficult to ensure that the non-networked message host receives policy updates.